Quotes & Sayings About Flowers And Friends

I would far rather have two or three lilies of the valley gathered for me by a person I like, than the most expensive bouquet that could be bought! — Elizabeth Gaskell

Dreams dawn and fly: friends smile and die, Like spring flowers. Our vaunted life is one long funeral. Men dig graves, with bitter tears, For their dead hopes; and all, Mazed with doubts, and sick with fears, Count the hours. — Matthew Arnold

It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer ... and everything collapses. — Colette

The universe is in the habit of making beauty. There are flowers and songs, snowflakes and smiles, acts of great courage, laughter between friends, a job well done, the smell of fresh baked bread. Beauty is everywhere. — Matthew Fox

I never thought much about flowers until I made the close acquaintance of a man who knew all about them. You would have thought that the butterflies and flowers were friends of his. 'See how richly they are clad,' he said. 'Even King Solomon did not have such raiment. — Lloyd C. Douglas

But no, I'm sorry. I can't end there. I haven't yet said everything I want to say. A little girl is at school, out in the playground with her friends, and she sees a flower and says to her friends, just thinking out loud, wondering gently to herself: Do you think flowers have feelings? And for the rest of the day her friends tease her relentlessly, with every new opportunity that arises. Do flowers have feelings, that's so stupid. Right, flowers have feelings. All day and for the rest of the week: stupid flowers have stupid feelings and that little girl feels she is never going to say anything like that ever again. She has already learned that when you open your heart or express genuine, innocent curiosity or wonder about the world, your friends will pounce on the opportunity and use it to hurt you as viciously as possible and there is nothing anyone can do to protect her. It's simple stories like that that really break my heart. — Jacob Wren

The Skeleton
Chattering finch and water-fly
Are not merrier than I;
Here among the flowers I lie
Laughing everlastingly.
No: I may not tell the best;
Surely, friends, I might have guessed
Death was but the good King's jest,
It was hid so carefully. — G.K. Chesterton

In marriage, if you're a guy, learn two phrases. One is "yes, dear" and the other is "honey, you're right." Be patient. Be good friends first. And stick together. You gotta work at it. It's not all a honeymoon, it's not all flowers and roses, but if you're friends and partners and committed, you'll be okay. And everybody's got advice for you - don't listen. — Denzel Washington

Oh say can you see Alma. The darling
of Them. All her friends were artists.
They alone have memories. They alone
love flowers. They alone give parties
and die. Poor Alma. They alone.
She died,
and it was as if all the jewels in the world
had heaved a sigh. The seismograph
at Fordham university registered, for once,
a spiritual note. How like a sliver
in her own short fat muscular foot.
She loved the Western World, though
there are some who say she isn't really dead. — Frank O'Hara

At such moments Gilberte's plaits used to brush my cheek. They seemed to me, in the fineness of their grain, at once natural and supernatural, and in the strength of their constructed tracery, a matchless work of art, in the composition of which had been used the very grass of Paradise. To a section of them, even infinitely minute, what celestial herbary would I not have given as a reliquary. But since I never hoped to obtain an actual fragment of those plaits, if at least I had been able to have their photograph, how far more precious than one of a sheet of flowers traced by Vinci's pencil! To acquire one of these, I stooped - with friends of the Swanns, and even with photographers - to servilities which did not procure for me what I wanted, but tied me for life to a number of extremely tiresome people. — Marcel Proust

Happy indeed is the naturalist: to him the seasons come round like old friends; to him the birds sing: as he walks along, the flowers stretch out from the hedges, or look up from the ground, and as each year fades away, he looks back on a fresh store of happy memories. — John Lubbock

Moss is selected to be the emblem of maternal love, because, like that love, it glads the heart when the winter of adversity overtakes us, and when summer friends have deserted us. — Henrietta Dumont

Lions and goats are friends. There are hard working jabbering animals who are slaves to the tiny disgusting rats. The fruits are larger than the parent trees ... the mighty illusions are in every single thing ... flowers are burning to touch and there are no nights in this amazing world ... and now this amazing labyrinth ... Where are we ... What is this place? Rosalina blurted out, getting the consistently mouthing soul of Palatablo on the spur of the moment. — D.R. Mirror

Lamium

Migraine dreams, jagged seams,
A badge of love and pain.
Or dreamy eyes, sleepy eyes,
Drooping, closing, losing light.
Packages scattered under the tree,
Some torn open, some tied tight.

Is there a heartbeat in those purple veins?
Are those embryos or mouths or rosary beads?
The color of my first dress, gathered with love,
Fairy cups stirred with blades of grass,
notes clustered on a windy score,
Three blooms, three friends, alas!

Grape flowers, cloud flowers, love flowers,
Paper parasols upside down, a butterfly herd
Stopped to rest by a deep green pool.
Petals small as a child's tears good-bye,
Dropped stitches everywhere
From a blanket the color of sky. — Louise Hawes

The War Sonnets: V. The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. — Rupert Brooke

Pick the weeds and keep the flowers. — Kelly Clarkson

All right, You Great Git, You've asked for it. I'll cover the world in Tastee-Freez and Wimpy Burgers. I'll fill it with concrete runways, motorways, aircraft, television, automobiles, advertising, plastic flowers, frozen food and supersonic bangs. I'll make it so noisy and disgusting that even You'll be ashamed of Yourself! No wonder You've so few friends. You're unbelievable! — Peter Cook

I usually spend Valentines Day with my friends. But if I did have a girlfriend, I'd bring her flowers and candy. — Zac Efron

I wondered ...if meeting people with creativity and passion when you were at an impressionable enough age actually kind of ruined you for life among normal people.

For a long time, I'd searched the world, thinking I could start up new friendships like the ones I'd had before. But I never met people like that again. I know people will think that's what everyone believes about their college friends, but it's true. Maybe we're like flowers that open up at that brief moment in our lives, and after that, we close up again, one by one. — Jennifer Finney Boylan

Suppose I tell you to fuck off."
"I will no longer be in a playful mood," it purred. "I will come for you. I will kill your blood, your friends, your beasts. I will kill the flowers in your home and the trees in your tiny fields. I will visit such death upon whatever is yours that your very name will be remembered only in curses andtales of terror — Jim Butcher

I believe you did not have a happy life.
I believe you were cheated.
I believe your best friends were loneliness and misery.
I believe your busiest enemies were anger and depression.
I believe joy was a game you could never play without stumbling.
I believe comfort, though you craved it, was forever a stranger.
I believe music had to be melancholy or not at all.
I believe no trinket, no precious metal, shone so bright as your bitterness.
I believe you lay down at last in your coffin none the wiser and unassuaged.
Oh, cold and dreamless under the wild, amoral, reckless, peaceful flowers of the hillsides. — Mary Oliver

Beneath these fruit-tree boughs that shed
Their snow-white blossoms on my head,
With brightest sunshine round me spread
Of spring's unclouded weather,
In this sequestered nook how sweet
To sit upon my orchard-seat!
And birds and flowers once more to greet,
My last year's friends together. — William Wordsworth

To ensure that the self doesn't shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, with friends. — Milan Kundera

Friendship is a sacred possession. As air, water and sunshine to flowers, trees and verdure, so smiles, sympathy and love of friends to the daily life of man. To live, laugh, love one's friends, and be loved by them is to bask in the sunshine of life. — David O. McKay

Why were the flowers born so beautiful and yet so hapless? Insects can sting, and even the meekest of beasts will fight when brought to bay. The birds whose plumage is sought to deck some bonnet can fly from its pursuer, the furred animal whose coat you covet for your own may hide at your approach. Alas! The only flower known to have wings is the butterfly; all others stand helpless before the destroyer. If they shriek in their death agony their cry never reaches our hardened ears. We are ever brutal to those who love and serve us in silence, but the time may come when, for our cruelty, we shall be deserted by these best friends of ours. Have you not noticed that the wild flowers are becoming scarcer every year? It may be that their wise men have told them to depart till man becomes more human. Perhaps they have migrated to heaven. Much may be said in favor of him who — Okakura Kakuzo

When I arrived back at Intro to Basic Art again later that week, I thought for a moment we had a new student who didn't know about the assigned seats. Sitting at my table was a girl in a long flowered dress, very vintage-hippie. She actually was wearing real flowers in her hair, and hardly any make up. I sat down, ready to explain to this poor lost soul that the seat was already taken, when I looked again and realized it was the same girl. I ended up not saying anything at all; I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't be rude or just plain stupid. — J.M. Richards

Messengers often come when you struggle with a decision, need support or are trying to find your balance. They can come as animals like coyote and lizard appeared for Kate and for me. They can be spirit guides, angels, family members, ancestors and friends. A messenger can even be me! Many of them you will not notice because you are too preoccupied to see them. There may come a time, however, when you might sense the millions of angels too small to be witnessed, like fairies that live in the curve of a leaf or who sleep under the tiniest rose petal. — Kate McGahan

Mandy tidied the weeds and pulled out some of the summer flowers. It saddened her to do so. She was parting with beloved friends. — Julie Andrews Edwards

I draw flowers every day and send them to my friends so they get fresh blooms every morning. — David Hockney

How sweet and gracious, even in common speech, Is that fine sense which men call Courtesy! Wholesome as air and genial as the light, Welcome in every clime as breath of flowers, It transmutes aliens into trusting friends, And gives its owner passport round the globe. — James Thomas Fields

Away

There is no sorrow
Time heals never;
No loss, betrayal,
Beyond repair.
Balm for the soul, then,
Though grave shall sever
Lover from loved
And all they share.
See the sweet sun shines
The shower is over;
Flowers preen their beauty,
The day how fair!
Brood not too closely
On love, on duty;
Friends long forgotten
May wait you where
Life with death
Brings all to an issue;
None will long mourn for you,
Pray for you, miss you,
Your place left vacant,
You not there. — Walter De La Mare

Since childhood she had walked the Devon rivers with her father looking for flowers and the nests of birds, passing some rocks and trees as old friends, seeing a Spirit everywhere, gentle in thought to all her eyes beheld. — Henry Williamson

Because I am really interested in gardening, I do really interesting plants, not even always flowers. And because I have grown them, I really know them like friends. I paint everything from exotic orchids to rosehips growing wild in a hedge. They just have to speak to me. — Emma Tennant

Such is friendship, that through it we love places and seasons; for as bright bodies emit rays to a distance, and flowers drop their sweet leaves on the ground around them, so friends impart favor even to the places where they dwell. With friends even poverty is pleasant. Words cannot express the joy which a friend imparts; they only can know who have experienced. A friend is dearer than the light of heaven, for it would be better for us that the sun were exhausted than that we should be without friends. — Saint John Chrysostom

I was surrounded by friends, my work was immense, and pleasures were abundant. Life, now, was unfolding before me, constantly and visibly, like the flowers of summer that drop fanlike petals on eternal soil. Overall, I was happiest to be alone; for it was then I was most aware of what I possessed. Free to look out over the rooftops of the city. Happy to be alone in the company of friends, the company of lovers and strangers. Everything, I decided, in this life, was pure pleasure. — Roman Payne

Friends and flowers are two of God's most extravagant blessings. Nurture both. - Mimi Greenwood Knight - — Gary Chapman

I hear he liked flowers pretty well."
"Yes," said Annie, "he said they were the friends who always came back and never disappointed him."
"Out, Brief Candle — Kurt Vonnegut

I think losing a loved one must be a little like losing a leg. First there is the shock, then the anesthetic, and the painkillers; the attention of doctors and nurses, flowers and cards and visits from friends. But sooner or later you have to learn to walk without it. — Ruth Graham

They spoke to each other in strange, strangulated voices, and lost the knack of making each other laugh, jeering at each other instead in a spiteful, mocking tone.
Their friendship was like a wilted bunch of flowers that she insisted on topping up with water.
Why not let it die instead?
It was unrealistic to expect a friendship to last forever, she had lots of other friends: the old college crowd, her friends from school, and Ian of course.
But whom to could she confide about Ian? Not Dexter, not anymore — David Nicholls

One's own flowers and some of one's own vegetables make acceptable, free, self-congratulatory gifts when visiting friends, though giving zucchini - or leaving it on the doorstep, ringing the bell, and running - is a social faux pas. — Barbara Holland

Why, I ask, can I not finish the letter that I am writing? For my room is always scattered with unfinished letters. I begin to suspect, when I am with you, that I am among the most gifted of men. I am filled with the delight of youth, with potency, with the sense of what is to come. blundering, but fervid, I see myself buzzing round flowers, humming down scarlet cups, making blue funnels resound with my prodigious booming. How richly I shall enjoy my youth (you make me feel). And London. And freedom. But stop. You are not listening. You are making some protest, as you slide, with an inexpressibly familiar gesture, your hand along your knee. By such signs we diagnose our friends' diseases. "Do not, in your affluence and plenty," you seem to say, "pass me by." "Stop," you say. "Ask me what I suffer. — Virginia Woolf

Hana yori dango. Dumplings over flowers. It basically means that someone should value needs over wants, substance over appearance. As in, make sure you have food and shelter before you burn money on something extravagant. And, you know, choose genuine friends who will be there for you over pretty, shallow ones. Don't get carried away by beauty if it leaves you empty. — Amanda Sun

I shop at thrift stores a lot. I have a lot of silver pitchers and I put my flowers in those. I collect antiques, so there are a lot of old rocking chairs ... My friends call my home the vortex because nobody wants to leave. — Monica Potter

Anarchy has the flexibility to overcome many of the traditional problems of activism by focusing on revolution not as another cause but as a philosophy of living. This philosophy is as concrete as a brick being thrown through a window or flowers growing in the garden. By making our daily lives revolutionary, we destroy the artificial separation between activism and everyday life. Why settle for comrades and fellow activists when we can have friends and lovers? — Curious George Brigade

I'm tired," I said. My voice shook as I tried to restrain my tears. "I'm tired of all of it. The running, the paranoia, being scared all the time, and the sleepless nights. I want a normal life. Is that too much to ask?"
"No, it's not. More than anyone, I believe you deserve it. The friends, the family - the house with a white picket fence, if you want it - you should have all of it."
I shook my head. "I am not talking about those things. I just want to live without fear, love without consequence, and not be blamed for the actions of my past in my future. I want to experience being me. — Loni Flowers

Those soapbubbles that kid
Amuses himself with by blowing them from a straw
Are transparently a whole philosophy.

Clear, useless and fleeting like Nature,
Friends to the eyes like things,
They are what they are
With a little round airy precision,
And nobody, not even the kid who's making them,
Pretends they're more than they appear to be.

Some are hard to see in the clear air.
They're like a breeze that blows and barely touches the flowers
And we only know it's blowing
Because something lightens in us
And accepts everything more clearly. — Alberto Caeiro

For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don't enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are that you're not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn't going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness. — Andy Rooney

Sometimes it's not all about the chocolate & the flowers & the jewelry & compliments. When you're dealing with real people & real feelings, sometimes it's about awkwardly presented offers of friendship. My advice is to recognize these for what they are, and make of them what you can, even if someone is giving you a metaphorical severed deer leg to get you to notice them. As I've recently learned, you never can tell where your best friends will come from in this life. — Johnny Virgil

We are all surrounded with so much static energy, that it is actually crucial to develop the ability to remove that and to flow through the streams in life that we make - the ones that are not stagnant, the ones that are real, the energy that is flowing and that is real and that is actual. You can get so caught up with what your friends think about your photo on Facebook that you don't realize your loss of ability to actually feel what in fact was going on in that photo. Too often, we stop to smell the flowers in order to show someone that we have stopped to smell the flowers; without actually smelling anything with our noses! This is scary. We live in a scary world. — C. JoyBell C.

Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,
and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon
accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are
friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way. — Li Bai

Sometimes since I've been in the garden I've looked up through the trees at the sky and I have had a strange feeling of being happy as if something was pushing and drawing in my chest and making me breathe fast. Magic is always pushing and drawing and making things out of nothing. Everything is made out of magic, leaves and trees, flowers and birds, badgers and foxes and squirrels and people. So it must be all around us. In this garden - in all the places. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

Store of bees, in a dry and warme bee-house, comely made of fir boards, to sing, and sit, and feede upon your flowers and sprouts, make a pleasant noyse and sight. For cleanly and innocent bees, of all other things, love and become, and thrive in your orchard. If they thrive (as they must needs if your gardiner be skilfull, and love them: for they love their friends and hate none
but their enemies) they will besides the pleasure, yeeld great profit, to pay him his wages; yea the increase of twenty stock of stools with other bees, will keep your orchard. — William Lawson

As I work among my flowers, I find myself talking to them, reasoning and remonstrating with them, and adoring them as if they were human beings. Much laughter I provoke among my friends by so doing, but that is of no consequence. We are on such good terms, my flowers and I. — Celia Thaxter

Look, Charlie," said Vince leaning back in his chair. "It's real simple. We will be four people
two men and two women
I figure it's better to have two women instead of three men and one woman so she'll have someone she can confide in and all. Women need that kind of thing. Anyway, we'll be four people
friends
housemates
equal partners. We'll be an alliance. We'll be just like family. And we'll help take care of one another. We'll have a nice home, each with our own private bedroom and bathroom, and a nice yard with flowers."
"And maybe a vegetable garden," added Charlie.
"That's it," grinned Vince. — Barbara Casey

That's why I stay to myself, and why I can never have a normal relationship with anyone. I have to keep my friends at arm's length at all costs because if I get too close to anyone - no matter how close I want to be - their lives and mine are at risk."
His fingers skimmed over the length of my arm down to my wrist. "What happens when you find that one person worth breaking the rules for?"
"I have to walk away."
Max stepped closer, and his body was pressing against mine. When I tried to move back, I hit the pylon, thereby preventing any escape. His lips were inches from mine. "What if someone thinks you're worth the risk?"
"I'd say that person is very foolish. I'm not worth dying for."
"You are worth it and I'm as foolish as they come. — Loni Flowers

Authentic worship means being present to the living God who penetrates the whole of human life. The proclamation of God's word and our response to God's Spirit touches everything that is involved in being human: mind and body, thinking and feeling, work and family, friends and government, buildings and flowers. — Eugene H. Peterson

Ever since I could remember anything, flowers have been like dear friends to me, comforters, inspirers, powers to uplift and to cheer. — Celia Thaxter

That's oak leaf, for bravery. I've got Veronica and Honeysuckle, for fidelity and affection. And that's Peony, for shame. She lives under this rock."
"Did you make that up by yourself?"
"'Course not. That's the language of flowers. Everyone knows that."
"No, they don't. I don't."
"Everyone used to know. They sent each other messages. Like Bluebells means, 'I'll always love you' and Jasmine means 'We're friends.' and Asphodels... Asphodels are for the dead. — Neil Gaiman

These women lived their lives happily. They had been taught, probably by loving parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing. But therefore they could never know real joy. Which is better? Who can say? Everyone lives the way she knows best. What I mean by 'their happiness' is living a life untouched as much as possible by the knowledge that we are really, all of us, alone. That's not a bad thing. Dressed in their aprons, their smiling faces like flowers, leaning to cook, absorbed in their little troubles and perplexities, they fall in love and marry. I think that's great. I wouldn't mind that kind of life. Me, when I'm utterly exhausted by it all, my skin breaks out, on those lonely evenings when I call my friends again and again and nobody's home, then I despise my own life - my birth, my upbringing, everything. I feel only regret for the whole thing. — Banana Yoshimoto

Remembering our past, carrying it around with us always, may be the necessary requirement for maintaining, as they say, the wholeness of the self. To ensure that the self doesn't shrink, to see that it holds on to its volume, memories have to be watered like potted flowers, and the watering calls for regular contact with the witnesses of the past, that is to say, with friends. They are our mirror; our memory; we ask nothing of them but that they polish the mirror from time to time so we can look at ourselves in it. — Milan Kundera